December 8, 2011 at Microsoft (Vision Building)

   Using Amazon's and Rackspace's Cloud Solutions by Dave Gorman

Amazon and Rackspace are some of the biggest names in cloud hosting. There are a lot of misconceptions about what an application needs to look like before it is ready to be on cloud hosting. Dave will show how hosting a dedicated Windows 2008 application; is only a few clicks away.

October 13, 2011 at Microsoft (Vision Building)

  1. NoSQL and MongoDB: Scaling Data Storage by Nathan Voxland
  2. Using Amazon's Cloud (EC2 and RDS) by Dave Gorman

Databases are growing larger and larger and some say traditional relational db designs are not architected for massive processing and parallel storage. A movement of NoSQL databases are becoming popular because they don't have the limitations of growth that RDBMS designs have; but beware as they do have their own tradeoffs. Nathan will speak about why NoSQL is growing in popularity and dig deeper into the free MonogoDB database.

Amazon is one of the primary leaders in cloud hosting. There are a lot of misconceptions about what an application needs to look like before it is ready to be on cloud hosting. Dave will show how hosting a dedicated Windows 2008 application; is only a few clicks away.

February 10, 2011 at Microsoft (Vision Building)

  1. Free Sql Server Tools Every Dev Should Have by Dave Gorman of Intelligent InSites
  2. Forecast for the next 10 years: Mostly Cloudy by Warren Wilbee, Sr. Director of Partner Evangelism, Microsoft

Like many developers, I often use Sql Server and I generally abuse it. There are some free tools I've found to help troubleshoot database issues as well as tools to assist in ongoing maintenance.

Windows Azure is Microsoft's cloud computing platform. Warren will walk thru Azure and show us why the future forecast is cloudy.

Artifacts

Sql Presentation:
Free_Sql_Server_Tools_Every_Dev_Should_Have.pptx
Tools:
http://www.ssmstoolspack.com/
sp_whoisactive
http://www.ignitefree.com/
http://ola.hallengren.com/

Windows Azure
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/

What is Azure Video(s)
Whiteboard What is the Windows Azure Platform (4 videos in the series). Each video is less than 5 minutes. The videos do a great job explaining the high level of Azure. Great place to start.
http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Abe+Pachikara/Whiteboard-Video-1-of-4-What-is-the-Windows-Azure-Platform

The Economics of the Cloud
http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2010/11/11/the-economic-impact-of-the-cloud.aspx

October 14, 2010 at Microsoft (Vision Building)

  1. Intro to LightSwitch by Eric Erhardt of Microsoft
  2. RabbitMQ: Messaging Awesomeness by Dave Gorman of Intelligent InSites

LightSwitch is the newest addition to the Visual Studio family; it is a simple way to develop business applications for the desktop, web and cloud. Eric is on the team developing LightSwitch and will give us a great intro.

Messaging can be a tricky when designing an enterprise solution. MSMQ works only with Microsoft technology, JMS only works with java; RabbitMQ is an open free messaging server that works with Java, .Net and many others. Written on a strong scalable platform of Erlang's OTP, RabbitMQ has some awesome capabilities.

Artifacts

Introducing_Visual_Studio_LightSwitch.pptx
RabbitMQ.pptx

August 12, 2010 at Microsoft (Vision Building)

  1. Intro to Mobile Development by Dave Gorman of Intelligent InSites
  2. Distributed System Design with NServiceBus by Jason Pettys of Nexus Innovations

There are quite a few mobile technologies, some targeting direct platforms like Android and iPhone; others look to make mobile web apps that target numerous types of phones. I've been looking into these technologies and will share what I have discovered.

Jason had the privilege of attending Udi Dahan's week long course on building enterprise systems. Udi is the creator of NServiceBus and is an expert in architecting scalable systems. Jason will show us the basics of NServiceBus.

July 8, 2010 at Pepper's

This meeting is a round table style meeting; where we chat about various programming topics. This is a great opportunity to discuss architechure or new tools that you find interesting.

May 13, 2010 at Pepper's

This meeting is a round table style meeting; where we chat about various programming topics. This is a great opportunity to discuss architechure or new tools that you find interesting.

April 8, 2010 at Microsoft (Vision Building)

  1. Agile Database Development by Nathan Voxland of Intelligent InSites
  2. Value Stream Mapping by James Walsh of NDSU

How do you keep your database up to date as your application is changing? If you are on a team, how do you keep track of db changes from other devs? Nathan will speak about different ways to accomplish these and other problems devs face with keeping a database current.

We often scour code looking for efficiencies but many times the largest gains can be seen outside the computer. James will discuss the mechanics of building a paper and pencil representation of how work actually gets done in your organization. Once visible, it can be analyzed, improved and changed. Secondarily, James will discuss facilitation of the value stream mapping group sessions and the organizational concerns and pitfalls based on his personal experience and learning from others.

Artifacts

AgileDatabaseDevelopment.pptx
http://www.liquibase.org/dotnetport
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471202835/ambysoftinc
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321293533/ambysoftinc

http://www.poppendieck.com/pdfs/Mapping_the_Value_Stream.pdf
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321150783

March 11, 2010 at Pepper's

This meeting is a round table style meeting; where we chat about various programming topics. This is a great opportunity to discuss architechure or new tools that you find interesting.

February 11, 2010 at Microsoft (Vision Building)

   What's New in Visual Studio 2010 by Mike Benkovich of Microsoft

You've heard about it and now you want to see it for yourself: Visual Studio 2010. Take a ride with us as we learn about new features like Highlighting References and Generate From Usage. Marvel at the new multi-line editing features! Help make your apps faster with the Parallel windows. Generate a database from your conceptual model by using the Create Database Wizard. Check out the new VB.NET Auto-Implemented Properties and C# Call Hierarchy features.

January 14, 2010 at Pepper's

This meeting is a round table style meeting; where we chat about various programming topics. This is a great opportunity to discuss architechure or new tools that you find interesting.

December 10, 2009 at Microsoft (Vision Building)

  1. The Fundamentals of Unit Testing by Max Pool of Sycorr
  2. Tour of Microsoft Vision building by Chris Garty of Microsoft

We talk about Unit Testing and various tools to aide in unit testing quite frequently. Taking a step back, Max is going to give us the whole picture of what unit testing is about. Why should a dev invest the time? How do you make your code more testable? How do you make your tests durable to changes? If you have doubts about unit testing, hopefully Max will show you the light.

During our normal second presentation, Chris Garty of Microsoft will give us a tour of the new Vision building at the Fargo Microsoft Campus.

November 12, 2009 at Pepper's

This meeting is a round table style meeting; where we chat about various programming topics. This is a great opportunity to discuss architechure or new tools that you find interesting.

October 8, 2009 at Intelligent InSites (102 Broadway)

  1. Build Server - Team City by Jason LaFlair of State Bank & Trust
  2. Efficiently Storing Trees in a Database by Dave Gorman of Intelligent InSites

We have a great meeting planned.
First off, Jason is going to show off some of the cool stuff he has been doing with build servers. Most build servers just compile code and exercise unit tests but State Bank & Trust has been doing more advanced processes like code signing and making installers automatically.

In the second presentation, I will show how we changed some of our self-referencing tables to make them more efficient. I've never been a big fan of self-referencing tables but sometimes they are a necessary evil. Some simple practices can make them more efficient and safer to use.

Artifacts

Storing_Trees_in_a_DB.zip

September 10, 2009 CANCELLED

August 13, 2009 at Pepper's

This meeting is a round table style meeting; where we chat about various programming topics. This is a great opportunity to discuss architechure or new tools that you find interesting.

July 9, 2009 at Microsoft

  1. Developing on the Google App Engine by Nathan Voxland of Intelligent InSites
  2. Developing with F# by Nathaniel Neitzke of LightHouse1

Google provides cloud hosting but requires you to develop under numerous conditions. Voxland created an application hosted with the Google App Engine and was featured on Apple's App store. Written in Python, he will explain what programming for Google's App Engine is like.

Neitzke has been working with F# for a long time and will show why this .Net language is very popular.

F# is a programming language that provides the much sought-after combination of type safety, performance and scripting, with all the advantages of running on a high-quality, well-supported modern runtime system.

Artifacts

Google App Engine Presentation
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/fsharp/default.aspx

June 11, 2009 at Pepper's

This meeting is a round table style meeting; where we chat about various programming topics. This is a great opportunity to discuss architechure or new tools that you find interesting.

May 14, 2009 at Microsoft

  1. Clean Code: Introduction to the SOLID Principles by Jason Pettys of Nexus Innovations
  2. Introduction to Lean Software Development by Max Pool of Sycorr

This meeting is focused on quality software practices. Jason will discuss Uncle Bob's S.O.L.I.D principles that every modern developer should know. Lean revolutionized manufacturing, Max will show how some practices can be applied to software development.

Artifacts

IntroToSolid-JasonPettys.zip (7.23M including presentation audio)
IntroToLean-MaxPool.zip (15.7M including presentation audio)

April 9, 2009 CANCELLED due to flood

March 12, 2009 at Microsoft

  1. Introduction to Scrum by Jeremy Neuharth of State Bank & Trust
  2. Behavior Driven Development w/ Scrum by Nathaniel Neitzke of Lighthouse1

This meeting is focused on software process. Process is something that needs to be worked on by every team to make sure it is running as efficiently as possible. Scrum is a type of Agile process which has grown in popularity over the last five years.

Behavior Driven Development (BDD) is not a common household term, so I asked Nathaniel to give me a description of his topic:

This talk is intended to introduce the user to Behavior Driven Development and how to drive the software design process from User Stories developed as part of the Scrum process. Behavior Driven Development is a rethinking of the Test Driven Development methodology that places the emphasis on behavior rather than identity. Utilizing BDD can result in a much cleaner code base that directly reflects the domain and is more adaptable to change. It also forces the developer to focus on implementing only the minimal code necessary to achieve the desired result and deliver business value as fast as possible.

Artifacts

Introduction_to_Scrum.pptx
BDD.pptx

Older Meetings

We have been meeting monthly since July 2005. Since our website redesign, the older meetings have not been imported. As time allows, I'll pull in the old meetings.